Full .pdf joint statement | Video available at UN Web TV at 2:16:19
Organization: Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
Item 2: Enhanced interactive dialogue on the High Commissioner’s report and Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
Date: 8 September 2025
Speaker: Renée Mulligan
Oral Statement to the 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Council from Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC) and the International Bar Association, NGOs in special consultative status.
Myanmar: Endless cycle of human rights violations and atrocity crimes by junta
Mr. President,
Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute join the High Commissioner’s continued call on the Myanmar military and other armed groups to cease violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
During the four years since the military coup in Myanmar there has been an unabated rise in indiscriminate and systematic attacks on ethnic minorities by the junta; 3.5 million are displaced and over 20 million are in humanitarian need across Myanmar.
The root cause of violations is the unbridled impunity of Myanmar’s military, including laws that violate international law, implemented by courts subsumed by the junta. Absent the rule of law and independent courts, most crimes committed by the junta are unreported. More than 22,300 are unlawfully detained without access to independent courts or adequate legal representation. Torture, ill-treatment and extra-judicial killings are routine, along with arrests of lawyers. At least 53 lawyers have been arrested since the coup. Military controlled courts have sentenced 172 detainees to death.
We call on all Council members, observer States, and UN bodies to:
- halt engagement with the junta and stop the flow of weapons;
- engage with the National Unity Government, ethnic communities and civil society to strengthen local governance systems; and
- promote a Security Council resolution for a full referral to the International Criminal Court.
Thank you.
